This is the sixth in a series of suggestions for new President Moon Jae-in. ― ED.

By Chang Se-moon

Suppose that South Korea offers Kim Jong-un of North Korea the presidency of South Korea as well as all the rights to control everything South Korea has in return for Kim reversing his nuclear program and dismantling all his nuclear weapons. I have no doubt that Kim will gladly accept the deal.

Now, suppose that South Korea offers Kim Jong-un one dollar in exchange for Kim terminating all his nuclear programs and destroying all his nuclear weapons. My guess is that Kim will accuse South Korea of acting crazy.

The two examples clearly suggestthat there isa range of prices between the two extremes which likely will force Kim to consider seriously for further negotiation. President Moon Jae-in will become true peace maker if he can articulate the range of prices that could bring both sides to the negotiating table. In coming up the range of prices, we need to consider the following.

First of all, the price has to be large, to the extent of being enormous. This is because the current price has to account for all the past policies that failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. All previous presidents of South Korea had neither vision nor will to take care of the long-term development of nuclear weapons in North Korea.

We can get a glimpse of how expensive the price could be. When President Trump asked China to take care of the nuclear weapons of North Korea, President Trump suspended his campaign promise to fix the annual trade deficit of over $300 billion against China. The nuclear weapons issue is more imminent to South Korea than to the United States.

Secondly, benefits from the payment should be spread over all areas of North Korea, not to the personal account of Kim Jong-un. Although the payment can be very costly to South Korea, the payment should not be all in cash. It can be, for instance, development of industrial complex similar to Gaesong Industrial Complex in every state within North Korea, creating hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs to ordinary people in North Korea.

In other words, South Korea needs to develop a comprehensive plan for developing the North Korean economy, financed by funds from South Korea.If the plan is huge enough to benefit millions of ordinary North Koreans, rejection of such plan by Kim would place him in a very precarious position. If he cares only about himself, he may reject the plans, moving his doomsday clock closer toward the midnight.

The third and final component of such plans is the speedy resolution. South Korea cannot afford to give North Korea more than six months to consider the proposal. Any appearance of prolonged peace talk will simply assist North Korea to complete their nuclear weapons program.

The main advantage of this approach is that South Korea will no longer be a bystander to the U.S. and China over the North Korean issue, and take an initiative to determine its own destiny.

This approach is not an easy one to carry out, however. Clearly, there is a risk for North Korea not to accept the proposal. Just as risky is the level of support among South Koreans for such ambitious and expensive proposal.

One task for President Moon Jae-in is to prepare the proposal in such way that it would be very difficult for Kim Jong-un to reject it without risking mass revolt among North Koreans. The other task for President Moon is to generate enough support among South Koreans for the proposal. The price will not be cheap, but there should a price that just might work.

Chang Se-moon is the director of the Gulf Coast Center for Impact Studies. Write to him at: changsemoon@yahoo.com.